90+

Yesterday I have received an email from a national restaurant chain announcing that they will now only purchase wines that have received 90 points plus from the Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast or Robert Parker. This is very sad news because all of this score madness is truly pushing winemakers to make wines that will please their local Wine Spectator, Enthusiast or Parker journalist. It is a bit of a self fullfilling prophecy, the “specialist” rate wines according to their taste, the buyers wanting to offer the best to their customers buy those highly rated wines, the same wines with the same styles end up everywhere forcing winemakers to compete with the same style if they want to get a score and sell their wines.